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Robert Barclay, Champion of Quaker Ideal

Dan Graves, MSL

Robert Barclay made Quaker thinking logically defensible when the
movement was only about a quarter of a century old. Some think he saved
it from extinction. Up till that time, although it had won a few notable
converts (among them William Penn, Isaac Penington, Thomas Ellwood and a
number of businessmen) it had mostly attracted persons of little stature
and a disproportionate number of delusional individuals and lunatics.
Some of these paraded stark naked through town "as a witness"
and entered traditional churches in undress to warn of the wrath to
come.

Robert himself, although greatly mortified by the exercise, felt
compelled to walk through Aberdeen once, dressed in sackcloth with ashes
on his head. He explained in a published letter how he had felt
constrained by God, as a prophet of old, to do this. It was the only
time he acted in such a manner.

Born on this day, December 23, 1648, Robert
received four years of training in Paris where a wealthy uncle offered
to make him his heir if only he would join the Roman Church. Meanwhile,
Robert's father, David Barclay, had become a Quaker. His dying wife made
him promise to bring Robert home, which David did, personally fetching
him from France. The boy was soon won to his father's convictions.
Scholarly from his youth up, he became the theologian of the Quaker
viewpoint. His was not merely a bookish faith however; he went to prison
several times because he was a Quaker./p>

Barclay argued that the only real Christianity is that in which the
Spirit of Christ is present. Since the Bible must be interpreted and
brought alive by the Holy Spirit, even its words are secondary to inner
illumination. Any merely historical or liturgical faith is dead. Any
worship which lacks Christ's presence is a sham. Faith must be something
experienced.

Spiritual-minded men do behold the
glory and beauty of God, in respect whereof and for which all the glory
of this world is despicable to them; yea, even as dross and dung. And
they also hear God inwardly speaking in their souls words truly divine
and heavenly, full of virtue and divine life; and they savour the taste
of divine things, and do as it were handle them with the hands of their
souls. And those heavenly enjoyments do as really differ in thier nature
from all false similitudes and fictitious appearances of them, which
either the mind of man by its own strength can imitate, or any evil
spirit to deceive man counterfeit; as a true man differs from the dead
image of a man; or true bread, honey, wine or milk doth differ from a
mere picture of those things.

His Apology for the True Christian Divinity has undergirded
Quaker thinking ever since it was penned. One Scotsman declared that
Barclay was the only great original theologian that Scotland ever
produced. However, his influence was not through his theology alone. In
his own age, he was active in national affairs and negotiated in behalf
of King James II. When he died at the young age of 42, he had fathered
nine children. His offspring were ardent Quakers, and their descendants
were prominent among the famous Quaker families of subsequent centuries:
the Barclays, Gurneys and Frys.

Bibliography:

Barclay, Robert. An Apology for the True Christian
Divinity. http://www.qhpress.org/texts/barclay/apology/